Languages of the World

The Case of the Missing Consonants: Mandarin’s Evolution

Unlike its southern relatives such as Cantonese, standard Mandarin has completely lost the "entering tone" and the clipped final stops…

1 week ago

Drawing Snakes with Feet: The Storytelling Power of Chengyu

Mandarin chengyu (four-character idioms) act as "cultural zip files", compressing complex historical tales into compact phrases like "to draw a…

1 week ago

The Bride of Scripts: Why Urdu Uses Nastaʿlīq

Explore the visual and linguistic allure of Urdu's "hanging" script, Nastaʿlīq. This article delves into why Urdu defies the flat…

1 week ago

Hindi vs. Urdu: Sister Languages or the Same Entity?

While Hindi and Urdu rely on completely different writing systems and divergent formal vocabularies—drawing from Sanskrit and Persian respectively—they share…

1 week ago

From Army Camps to Poetry: The Surprising Origins of Urdu

Discover the fascinating linguistic evolution of Urdu, a language that began as a practical means of communication in Mughal army…

1 week ago

Nivkh: The Mysterious Isolate of Sakhalin Island

Discover Nivkh, a mysterious language isolate indigenous to Sakhalin Island and the Amur River that has survived centuries of pressure…

1 week ago

When Scots Was King: A Royal History

Trace the rise and fall of the Scots language, from its golden age as the official tongue of kings and…

1 week ago

Aitken’s Law: The Unique Sound of Scots

Explore the fascinating mechanics of Aitken’s Law, the phonological rule that gives Scots its distinctive, choppy rhythm and sets it…

1 week ago

From Maykop to Kfar Kama: The Global Journey of Adyghe

Discover the fascinating linguistic journey of Adyghe, a complex Northwest Caucasian language that traveled from the Russian city of Maykop…

1 week ago

Adyghe: The Language With 50 Consonants and 2 Vowels

Explore the linguistic anomaly of Adyghe, a Northwest Caucasian language that challenges phonological norms with over 50 distinctive consonants and…

1 week ago

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